Daily Marketing Tip #2 – Explanation

This marketing tip is inspired by an event I witnessed several weeks ago. While driving to a retail shopping center, I witnessed a young man standing on the center medium of the centers entrance. In his hand was a sign that read, “Cactus Cantina Serves Breakfast Too!” and an arrow pointing in the direction of the restaurant. This was Guerrilla Marketing at its best! (See Sidebar below for details on Guerrilla Marketing.)

What makes this tip so great is the center has what’s known as an anchor restaurant (a major restaurant that is responsible for drawing a majority of the customers). The anchor restaurant is an IHOP — International House of Pancakes. The restaurant advertising is not known for serving breakfast. To increase their breakfast business, they had a sign twirler (a person who stands outside with a sign and twirls or dances with it, attracting attention), stand on a center medium and directing traffic toward the cantina. The best part, this was happening at peek breakfast time on a Sunday morning, when the IHOP is packed and wait times are long.

If you have a retail store or restaurant and there’s an anchor store or restaurant that is receiving a lot of the business, use a sign twirler or other attention getting device to steel customers away from the anchor business.